Kiwibank’s Green Ops campaign was a very different strategy for a bank as the locally owned institution took on the five big banks and “made it easy for New Zealanders to switch banks”.

The campaign, Operation EasySwitch, which encouraged consumers to switch to Kiwibank, centred around an engaging and entertaining video experience via a bespoke YouTube channel called Green Ops. The site was built around a loose narrative of the elite switch team within Kiwibank whose mission was to help rescue customers from bad banking experiences.

To promote the site a full movie-like teaser campaign was created in spy thriller genre complete with movie posters, video trailers, radio ads and press releases.But it was a serious lead generation and acquisition campaign that beat every switching record in the bank’s history.

Over the course of the campaign switching applications were received at six times the rate they had been arriving previously.

And the digital solution aimed to entertain to engage. It had to hold the attention of visitors and educate them on the new easy “switch with one signature” process and to do so the campaign had to entertain them and in turn capture leads for conversion. Those who did not want to switch were encouraged to share the experience with friends.